Students are disengaging from the curriculum at key stage 3 because they are not getting the most effective teachers, a former schools minister has warned.
Speaking at a Labour conference panel today, Lord Knight said schools allocated the best teachers to exam classes, which was “logical” but had a detrimental impact on students in years 7 to 9.
“I do think there’s often a KS3 problem in certainly the priority subjects,” he said at the event on how curriculum changes could help pupils enjoy school more.
He said: “School leaders, very logically, put their most effective teachers into key stage 4 teaching, because that’s where the accountability system forces them.
“We’re losing a lot of kids in KS3 because the quality of the experience is not engaging enough.”
Parentkind chief executive Jason Elsom said his organisation too often heard that pupils were going to school feeling disengaged because the curriculum had become too focused on ticking boxes and meeting targets.
The government has announced a curriculum and assessment review, led by Professor Becky Francis.
Panellists discussed the opportunities presented by the curriculum review and wider school reform.
Lord Knight, who is also chair of the E-ACT multi-academy trust, said he would like to see the curriculum review create more time and space for teachers to “teach to the children that are in front of them”, rather than “the prescription of the content of the curriculum”.
He said this would give teachers more agency to make the curriculum more relevant to their students, and give students more agency over their learning and feeling like school is a place they belong in.
For example, set texts in English should be more relevant to pupils, he said.
Matthew Shanks, CEO of Education South West, suggested transition preparation after Year 6 Sats could be improved to help pupils prepare and stay engaged as they move to secondary.
The panel discussed the need to remove some of the pressures on students caused by the size of the curriculum, the number of exams and accountability measures.
Mr Elsom said we need to “take a red pen” to the curriculum to make it more enjoyable for children, and to give teachers the agency and trust to decide what are the right things to teach.
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